Limit

by Frank Schätzing

  Vogelaar

  His thoughts were a whirl. He was caught up on a merry-go-round of ifs and buts as his feet carried him mechanically along the Processional Way. If Jericho and the girl got there at the time agreed, if Xin kept to the arrangement, if he could actually trust the Chinese assassin – but what if he couldn’t? Here and now, he was in danger of letting the last chance to free Nyela slip through his fingers, but she was in the clutches of a madman who quite possibly never even intended to let her, or him, live. He had decades of experience in finding his way out of tight spots, but it was no use. He was unarmed, without even a phone, in the middle of a crowded museum, and his chances of putting one over on Xin were slim – but it wasn’t impossible. Could he really afford not to use any tricks? Just how dangerous was this Mickey who was currently watching over Nyela? The Irishman gave the impression of being just another hapless career criminal, but if he worked for Xin, he had to be a threat. Nevertheless Vogelaar reckoned he could get rid of the guy, but first of all he had to deal with Xin.

  An attack, then. Or not? In the next couple of minutes, before he reached the Pergamon hall. Unarmed and with no plan.

  Not a glimmer!

  No, he couldn’t attack. The only way to get one over that madman was blind luck, but what if Xin actually intended to keep his promise? What if Vogelaar failed in his attempt to put one past him, and in failing, actually caused Nyela’s death, not to mention his own?

  Trick him? Trust him? Trick him?

  * * *

  Five minutes earlier, in the James Simon Gallery.

  ‘I understand you,’ Xin says gently. ‘I wouldn’t trust me either.’ He’s close behind Vogelaar, the flechette pistol hidden under his jacket.

  ‘And?’ Vogelaar asks. ‘Would you be right?’

  Xin considers for a moment.

  ‘Have you ever got to grips with astrophysics?’

  ‘There were other things in my life,’ Vogelaar snarls. ‘Coups, armed conflict—’

  ‘A pity. You would understand me better. Physicists are concerned, among other things, with the parameters of a stable universe. Or indeed of any universe which could come into existence at all, as such. There’s a long list of facts to deal with, but it all comes down to two different points of view. One of them says that the universe is infinitely stable, that it never even had any choice but to develop in the form in which we know it. If things had been different, perhaps no life would have been able to arise. Pondering such matters though is as pointless as wondering what your life might have been like if you’d been born a woman.’

  ‘Sounds fatalistic, boring.’

  ‘Philosophically speaking, I quite agree. Which is why the other camp likes to speak of the infinite fragility of the universe, of the fact that even the smallest variation in initial parameters could lead to fundamental changes. A tiny little bit more mass. Just a very few less of this or that elementary particle. The first camp says that all sounds too contingent, and they’re right. But the second viewpoint does come closer to the way we imagine existence to be. What if … ? For myself, I prefer a vision of order and predictability, grounded in binding, non-negotiable parameters. And that’s the spirit in which we made our agreement, you and I.’

  ‘Meaning that you can always come up with some reason you needn’t keep your promise.’

  ‘You have a petty mind, if I may be so bold as to say so.’

  Vogelaar turns around and stares at him.

  ‘Oh, I already see what you mean! I understand how you see yourself. Might the problem perhaps be that your’ – he waved his hand in the air in a circle – ‘idea of universal order doesn’t hold true for your fellow mortals?’

  ‘What’s up all of a sudden, Jan? You were calmer just a moment ago.’

  ‘I couldn’t give a damn what you think about that! I want to hear you say that Nyela will be safe if I keep my side of the bargain.’

  ‘She’s my guarantee that you’ll keep it.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘As I have said before—’

  ‘Say it again!’

  ‘My goodness me, Jan! Truth doesn’t become any more true just from being repeated.’ Xin sighs and looks up at the ceiling. ‘If you like, though. As long as Mickey’s with her, Nyela’s fine, she’s safe. If everything else goes according to our agreement, nothing will happen to either of you. That’s the deal. Are you content?’

  ‘Partly. The devil never does anything without his reasons.’

  ‘I appreciate the flattery. Now do me a favour and move your arse.’

  The Market Gate of Miletus.

  Xin’s words in his ear. What if he turned round, right now, this moment? Ran through the museum full tilt, tried to reach the restaurant before him? That would definitely change the parameters! But to do that he would have to know exactly where Xin was. He had stayed behind as they went into the south wing. Vogelaar had turned round once to try to spot him, but hadn’t been able to see him among the hordes of tour groups. He didn’t doubt that the killer was watching his every step, but he also knew that from now on in, Xin would stay invisible until the time was ripe. Jericho and the girl were sitting in a trap in the Telephos hall. He would show up as though out of thin air, shoot twice—

  Or would it be three times?

  Trust him? Trick him?

  Xin wasn’t sane. He didn’t live in the real world, he lived in some abstraction of reality. Which was actually a reason to trust him. His madness forced him to cling to order. Perhaps Xin wasn’t even able to break a promise, as long as all the parameters were observed.

  He shrugged his way through the crowds and approached the entrance to the Pergamon hall, a smaller gate in the Hellenistic façade, which was just now being cleaned and restored. To leave a clear view of the architecture, the museum had clad it with glass walls rather than shrouds. The glass reflected the spotlights from the ceiling, and the statues and the columns all around, the visitors, himself—

  And someone else.

  Vogelaar stared.

  For the length of a heartbeat he was helpless against rising panic. Iron bands clamped his ribcage, and an electric field paralysed his legs. Rage, hate, grief and fear pooled like a thrombosis in his feet, which became numb, refused to take one more step. Instead of horror at all the things that could happen to Nyela, he felt the searing certainty of what had most probably already happened.

  As long as Mickey’s with her, Nyela’s fine—

  Then why was Mickey in the museum?

  Because Nyela was no longer alive.

  It could only be that. Would Xin have allowed her to stay in the restaurant unguarded? Vogelaar walked on as though drunk. He had failed. He had surrendered to the childish hope that the madman might keep his promises. Instead, Xin had ordered the Irishman to come along to the museum to share the work of killing. That was all. Just as Nyela had never had a chance, right from the start, he too would die along with Yoyo and Jericho, in the little room at the top of the temple, if not before.

  The thought acted like an acid, dissolving his fears in a trice. Ice-cold rage flooded in instead. One by one, his survival mechanisms clicked into place, and he felt the metamorphosis, felt himself become once more the bug he had been for most of his life. He marched onwards, chitin-clad, through the gate and into the Pergamon hall next door. Watchful, he waved his antennae, saw the entire hall through faceted eyes: over there, at the opposite end of the great hall, another gate that was the partner of the one he had come through, tiny, almost ashamed to be so small but nevertheless bravely doing its work, one narrow little bypass in the flow of bodies through the museum, pumping tirelessly. To his left, isolated parts of the frieze standing alone on pillars and pedestals; to his right the temple with the stairway, up above the colonnade, leading through to the Telephos hall where Jericho and the girl would be, waiting for a dossier that they would never see now, that they would never need. It would have all been so simple, so quickly over and done with. He would have been a h
undred thousand euros richer, and he would have handed them the second dossier. The duplicate that apart from him only Nyela had known about—

  Had known?

  How could he be sure that she was dead?

  Because she was.

  Wishful thinking. No part of a bug’s existence.

  Vogelaar’s jaw worked back and forth. Platoons of tourists thronged the stairway to the colonnade, many sitting on the steps as though planning to have lunch there. Vogelaar spotted a younger group all armed with sketch pads and pencils, their faces fixed in concentration, rapt in their struggle with immortal art. A few curious passers-by were peering over their shoulders. He swept his eyes across the students, one by one, and stopped at a pale girl with a sharp nose who had gathered no admirers around her. He walked up to her, unhurried. On the white sheet of paper, Zeus fought the giant Porphyrion, and the two of them together fought the girl’s artistic ineptitude, her inability to breathe life into the scene. She must have had a good twenty pencils in the case next to her, and the number was obviously inversely proportional to her talent. Clearly every euro of tip money from the evening job waiting tables went on her art supplies. She was throwing money away in the deluded belief that in art, having the right kit is half the struggle.

  He leaned down to her and said in his friendliest voice, ‘Could you perhaps – excuse me! – lend me one of your pencils?’

  She blinked up at him, startled.

  ‘Just for a moment,’ he added quickly. ‘I want to jot something down. Forgot my pen, as always.’

  ‘Hmm, ye-e-es,’ she said, slowly, obviously upset at the thought that pencils might be used for writing as well. In the next moment she seemed to have come to terms with the idea. ‘Yes, of course! Pick any one.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you.’

  He chose a long, neatly sharpened pencil which looked sturdier than the rest, and straightened up. Xin was watching him at this moment, he had no doubt. Xin saw everything and would draw his own conclusions from whatever Vogelaar did, meaning that he only had seconds.

  He turned round, lightning-fast.

  Mickey was only a few steps behind him, and stared at him like a surprised mastiff, then half-heartedly tried to hide behind a group of Spanish-speaking pensioners. Vogelaar was at his side with just a few brisk paces. The Irishman fumbled at his hip with his right hand. Obviously Xin had never given him instructions in the event anything like this should happen, since he seemed absolutely flummoxed. His jowls wobbled with fury, his eyes darted hectically to and fro, sweat broke out on his pate.

  Vogelaar put a hand to the back of his head, pulled him in close, and rammed the pencil into his right eye.

  The Irishman gave a blood-curdling scream. He twitched, and blood spouted from the entry wound. Vogelaar pushed the flat of his hand more firmly against the end of the pencil, drove it deeper into the eye socket, felt the tip break through bone and enter the brain. Mickey slumped, his bowels and bladder emptying. Vogelaar felt for the killer’s gun and tore it from the holster.

  ‘Jericho!’ he yelled.

  Stampede

  Jericho had chosen to wait for the South African on the other side of the temple, hidden behind a phalanx of free-standing sculpture exhibits, uncomfortably aware that Vogelaar could get the drop on him. He was even more frightened by what he saw now. It was worse than any of the scenarios his overheated imagination had dreamed up over the past couple of hours, since it meant that the handover had failed. No doubt about it.

  Everything was going horribly wrong. With his Glock in his right hand, he broke cover. Shock-waves of horror and revulsion were spreading out from the scene of the attack; he could hear screams, shrieks, groans, noises that defied description. The immediate eyewitnesses had reeled back to form a kind of small arena, with Vogelaar and the bald man in the middle, like a pair of modern-day gladiators. Others had frozen with terror as though struck by a Gorgon’s gaze, as motionless as the gods and giants all around. Pencils dropped from the art students’ nerveless fingers. The girl with the sharp nose leapt up, bouncing on the balls of her feet like a rubber ball, and held her hands in front of her mouth as though trying to stop herself squeaking. Little yelps of fear slipped through her half-open lips, as regular as an alarm. Everywhere heads turned, eyes went wide with shock, people walked faster, groups broke apart. The fight-or-flight response was beginning to set in.

  All structures were breaking down. And in the midst of it all, Jericho saw the angel of death.

  He was running towards Vogelaar, who was buckling under his victim’s weight. The dying man fell to the ground, dragging the South African with him. The angel was closing in from the northern wing, white-haired, ferociously moustached, his eyes hidden by tinted glasses, but the way he moved left no doubt as to his identity. Nor did the pistol that seemed to leap into his hand as he ran.

  Vogelaar saw him coming as well.

  Yelling, he managed to heave the bald man back up. The next moment the leather jacket covering his torso exploded, as the shots that had been meant for Vogelaar smacked into him. Jericho threw himself to the ground. Vogelaar struggled to shove the dead man aside and opened fire in turn on Xin, who took cover among the screaming, running crowd. A woman was hit in the shoulder and dropped to the ground.

  ‘No point!’ Jericho yelled. ‘Get out of here.’

  The South African kicked at the corpse, trying to get free. Jericho dragged him to his feet. With a sound like meat slapping down onto a butcher’s block, Vogel-aar’s upper thigh burst open. He collapsed against Jericho and clutched him tight.

  ‘Get to the restaurant,’ he gasped. ‘Nyela—’

  Jericho grabbed him under the arms without letting go of the Glock. He was heavy, much too heavy. All hell was breaking loose around them.

  ‘Pull yourself together,’ he grunted. ‘You’ve got to—’

  Vogelaar stared at him. He sank slowly to the ground, and Jericho realised that Xin had shot him again. Panic swept over him. He scanned the crowd for the killer, spotted his shock of white hair. He only had moments before Xin would have another clear line of sight.

  ‘Get up,’ he screamed. ‘Get going!’

  Vogelaar slipped from his grasp. His face was going waxen, mask-like, horribly fast. He fell on his back, and a gout of bright red blood gushed from his mouth.

  ‘Nyela – don’t know if – probably dead, but – perhaps—’

  ‘No,’ Jericho whispered. ‘You can’t die on me …’

  A few metres away, a man was lifted up and flung forward as though by a giant fist. He flew through the air and then crashed to the ground, spread-eagled.

  Xin was clearing his way through.

  Vogelaar, Jericho thought desperately, you can’t just croak on me now, where’s the dossier, you’re our last hope, get up, for goodness’ sake. Get up. Get up!

  Then he turned and ran as fast as he could.

  * * *

  Vogelaar stared into the light.

  He had never been a religious man, and even now he found that the promise of heaven sounded tawdry and hollow. Why should every fool who’d ever drawn breath find their way to the Other Side? Religion was just one of those cracks this bug had never scuttled into. He couldn’t understand a character like Cyrano de Bergerac, who had spent a lifetime scoffing at religion and then felt a pang of fear at the last moment, humbly seeking forgiveness on his deathbed in case there was a God after all. Life ended. Why waste what time was left to him believing in some paradise? This was only the neon white light streaming down onto him from the ceiling, the artificial daylight of the museum hall. The white light that people spoke of after near-death experiences. The Hereafter, supposedly. In truth it was nothing but hallucinogenic tryptamine alkaloids flooding the brain.

  How stupid of him not to have given Jericho the dossier! Done with now. Dead and gone. He felt a faint flicker of hope that he had been wrong about Nyela. Hope that she was still alive, that the detective could do something for her – i
f he got out alive. Otherwise the situation was beyond his control, beyond his concern – but it wasn’t the worst way to die, his last thoughts with the only person he had loved more than himself.

  Now he was freed from his armour, his bug’s shell. Free at last?

  Xin came into view.

  Gasping and grunting, Vogelaar lifted his gun, or rather strained every muscle to do so. He might just as well have been trying to fling a dumbbell at Xin. The pistol lay in his hand, heavy as lead. He only just had strength enough left to shoot daggers from his eyes.

  The killer curled his lips contemptuously.

  ‘Parameters, you idiot!’ he said.

  * * *

  Xin shot Vogelaar in the chest and stalked on past without giving the dead man a second glance. Did he have any cause to reproach himself? Had it been a mistake to order Mickey along to the museum at the last moment, so that nothing went wrong this time? Vogelaar had spotted the Irishman, had drawn the wrong conclusion – and all this time Nyela was hanging from two pairs of handcuffs in the cellar at Muntu. Unharmed, as Xin had promised.

  Hadn’t he said that he’d let her live?

  He’d done that, damn it!

  Yes, he would have let them both live! He’d have been happy to let them live! Vogelaar hadn’t understood anything, the stupid ape. Now it was all past help, the laws cried out for vengeance. Now he had to kill the woman. He’d promised that too.

  Xin began to run, driving the crowd before him like lowing cattle, dumb animals all trying to crush through the narrow gate at the same time. A girl in front of him stumbled and fell to the ground. He trampled her underfoot, flung another to the side, cracked the pistol grip against the side of an old man’s head, fought his way through, charged like a battering ram at the ruck of fleeing tourists and plunged out the other side, his gaze fixed on the Market Gate of Miletus, where Jericho had just vanished through into the next wing. He squeezed off a burst of fire, sending splinters flying from two-thousand-year-old carvings. People screamed, ran, flung themselves to the ground, the same old tiresome spectacle. Swinging his pistol like a club, he followed Jericho, saw him melt into the crowd of visitors thronging the Processional Way, and then in his place two uniformed figures ran out from a corridor off to the side, their weapons at the ready but without the first idea of who their enemy really was. He mowed them down without breaking stride. A bow wave of panic washed before him, all the way to Babylon.